German police have detained the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont under a European arrest warrant as he crossed from Denmark into Germany.

Puigdemont, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Brussels since October, was travelling in a car on the way from Finland to Belgium on Sunday when he was detained, having visited Finnish lawmakers in Helsinki.

On Friday the Spanish government reactivated an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who is wanted on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

Spain sent a request to the Finnish authorities to detain Puigdemont, who was on a visit to promote the Catalan independence cause. However, the request was written in Spanish and there was a delay while authorities in Madrid had it translated into English. In the meantime, Puigdemont left the country.

In a statement on Sunday, Puigdemont’s press officer said: “Carles Puigdemont has been detained in Germany as he crossed from Denmark en route to Belgium. He has been properly treated throughout and is right now in a police station. He was on his way to Belgium where he would be, as always, at the disposal of Belgian justice.”

Ralph Döpper, a deputy general attorney at the state prosecutor in Schleswig-Holstein, told the Guardian he was currently investigating whether Puigdemont would be placed into extradition custody, and he would announce his preliminary findings on Monday morning. On Sunday afternoon Puigdemont was transferred to Neumünster prison in northern Schlewig-Holstein.

Citing “rumours within judicial circles”, the local newspaper Kieler Nachrichten reported that Puigdemont was considering applying for asylum in Germany. The paper added that the chances of an asylum application overriding the European arrest warrant were relatively slim.

News of the arrest sparked protests in Barcelona that turned violent, with three arrests and at least 52 people injured.

A crowd of several thousand people gathered outside the office of the European commission chanting “no more repression” and “general strike”. They later made their way to demonstrate outside the German consulate. There were also traffic go-slows on several main roads.

While the main demonstration passed off peacefully, several hundred protestors tried to break through police cordons around the seat of the Spanish government in the city. They were beaten back by baton charges.

There were also demonstrations in all four of Catalonia’s provincial capitals and major roads were blocked by sit-down protests amid a growing sense that the era of peaceful pro-independence demonstrations is over, despite appeals from the main secessionist parties for calm.

Puigdemont had covered 808 miles (1,300km) of the 1,243-mile car journey when he was stopped at 11.19am, apparently at a petrol station near Schuby on the A7 motorway, 31 miles into German territory, according to his lawyer, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas.

According to German media reports, the arrest was made following a tipoff from Spain’s intelligence agency to German federal police’s Sirene bureau, part of a network of information-sharing units for national police in the Schengen area.

Puigdemont could face up to 25 years in prison in Spain if convicted of charges of rebellion and sedition for organising an illegal referendum for Catalonia that led to a unilateral declaration of independence in October.

According to the rules of the European arrest warrant, Germany has up to 60 days to decide whether to extradite him to Spain. If Puigdemont surrenders to be prosecuted, the decision must be made within 10 days.

The international warrant, originally issued in November, was rescinded in December amid Spanish concerns that Belgium would not extradite Puigdemont for the more serious charges against him as they are not on the Belgian statute books.

Were he to be extradited only on the lesser charge of misuse of public funds, he could be tried only for that offence.

Germany can extradite suspects only if the alleged offence is also punishable under German law. There is no such crime as rebellion under German law, but there is a crime of high treason, defined as using force or the threat of force to undermine the constitutional order.

The Catalan unilateral declaration of independence was entirely peaceful, if unlawful, although Spanish authorities may argue there was an implicit threat of force. The crime of sedition was dropped from German law in the 1970s.

The arrest warrant was reactivated on Friday, as were similar warrants for other Catalan fugitives – Lluís Puig, Meritxell Serret and Toni Comín, who are all in Belgium, and Clara Ponsati, currently in Scotland where she is teaching at the University of St Andrews. Authorities in Scotland confirmed they had received the warrant, and Ponsati was said to be negotiating to turn herself in to police.

Warrants were also issued for the arrest of Marta Rovira, secretary general of the secessionist Republican Left party, and Anna Gabriel, of the radical Popular Unity Candidacy, both of whom have sought refuge in Switzerland.

On Friday a Spanish supreme court judge remanded in custody Jordi Turull, the third and latest candidate for the vacant Catalan presidency, and four others, among them a former speaker of the Catalan parliament. They join Oriol Junqueras, leader of Republican Left, and three others already held on remand in Madrid jails.

“The European elite is visibly nervous,” Orban told hundreds of cheering supporters. “Their big goal to transform Europe, to ship it into a post-Christian era, and into an era when nations disappear - this process could be undermined in the European elections. And it is our elementary interest to stop this transformation.”

Orban said the European parliamentary vote must prove that there was an alternative to liberal democracy, which he said worked in undemocratic ways in Western Europe by being intolerant of alternative views.

“Christian democracy is not liberal...It is illiberal, if you like,” Orban said. Unlike liberal democracy, he said, Christian democracy rejects multiculturalism and immigration while being anti-communist and standing for Christian values.

“We are facing a big moment: we are saying goodbye not simply to liberal democracy ... but to the 1968 elite,” he said, alluding to an international wave of leftist, liberal protest that upended the ruling conservative order in many countries.

I say RIGHT ON Hungary and Thank God for Hungary.
The usury banking criminals(who control Brussels and own the ECB) want the immigrants because they are debt-free and can be turned into future debt-slaves, also governments must borrow huge amounts from the usury bankers to pay for the immigrants, more profits for the usury bankers. Also the immigrants will be forced to pay interest on these exponentially growing public debts, paying interest to the usury bankers of course. It is necessary to keep the criminally insane debt-based 'money creation' scheme going.

The usury banking satanists (aka ECB) who control the EU can not stand the fact that the Poles, and we presume the Hungarians, are devout Catholics, or that they remember life under the USSR and they are fully aware that the EU is developing into something even worse.

The usury banking satanists want one world government controlled by the central banks (or A central bank) and policed by the UN, NATO and and and..........A EUROPEAN ARMY|!!!!!!!

A year after threatening the unity of Spain with an attempt to declare independence,
the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont launched a new party on Saturday,
as part of a new bid to rally separatists from his base in Belgium.

The price of widely used diesel has risen by around 23%
over the past 12 months to €1.51 (£1.32; $1.71) per litre,
its highest point since the early 2000s.

World oil prices did rise before falling back again but the Macron
government raised its hydrocarbon tax this year by 7.6 cents per
litre on diesel and 3.9 cents on petrol, as part of a campaign for
cleaner cars and fuel.

The decision to impose a further increase of 6.5 cents on diesel and
2.9 cents on petrol on 1 January 2019 was seen as the final straw.

The president has blamed world oil prices for three-quarters of the price
rise. He also said more tax on fossil fuels was needed to fund renewable
energy investments.[/center]

Tear gas and a water cannon were deployed in Paris as protesters again flooded the streets against fuel prices hikes. Thousands have been protesting across France against the measure, which resulted in massive blockades.

The tense standoff between riot police and demonstrators – some of them masked – escalated as law enforcement were pelted with bottles. Police fired back with tear gas and water cannon spay.

At one point the city center resembled a battlefield, covered with smoke and what remained of the barricades, which were set up from fences and trash bins. Possible smoke grenades were also used as people walked past the smoking projectiles.

RT’s correspondent Charlotte Dubenskij has been caught in the midst of the rally and is giving more updates as the demonstration progresses.

AP footage also showed one of the protesters being dragged away by police in riot gear.

Saturday marks the second week in a row that protests have been held in the French capital and across the country. Some 3,000 security personnel have been deployed to deal with the rally in the city alone.

One of the videos from the unrest shows demonstrators chanting behind the improvised barricades before being forced to retreat as they were smashed by thick sprays from the water cannon.

The unease has been spurred on by rising fuel prices and a planned fuel tax. The ‘Yellow Vest’ movement, as it’s called, is protesting the measure which is due to be in place from January 1, 2019. The government claims the move is aimed at promoting environmentally friendly practices. However, that has been met with a fierce response from the public.

1:20pm Paris time:

Police and CRS have withdrawn and protesters
set a fire. They now control the Champs Elysses.

1:40pm Paris time:

Pitched battle now along the Champs
as police attempt to clear the street.

2:10pm Paris time:

Protesters are now clearing rubble from the lower end of the Champs
to form new and makeshift barricades even as many hardcore
colleagues are still fighting police around the Arch de T.

They have set alight a large barricade across the Champs
at the junction with Rue Pierre Charon and this tactic will
make it impossible for the police trucks to get near them.

Protesters still control most of the Champs and numbers there
on the lower Champs are around 3,000 from the estimated 5,000
who began the protest earlier.

This has turned from direct anti-carbon tax fuel price protests
into a general expression of pissed-off-ness against globalists.

3:15pm Paris Time:

Protesters now singing the French national anthem in thousands
as tear gas shrouds the upper Champs from view. It's not feasible
to try clear the Champs and the police are in a holding mode._________________Minds are like parachutes.
They only function when open.

Last edited by Fintan on Sat Nov 24, 2018 6:21 pm; edited 6 times in total